Mets Notes: Trades, Conforto, Wright

The Mets’ inaction this season has been “inexplicable,” ESPN’s Buster Olney writes. The Mets have failed to address an injury-ravaged lineup, thus leaving Lucas Duda and an excellent rotation hanging out to dry. As a result, the Mets have scored only 25 runs total since June 16. As Olney points out, of course, there isn’t much happening on the trade market right now, with several weeks to go before the deadline and not many teams yet willing to pull the plugs on their seasons. But Olney suggests the Mets could at least find a depth-type player who might help, much as the Blue Jays did with Chris Colabello. They could also find help by being willing to take on a chunk of a bad contract. The team’s problem isn’t manager Terry Collins, Olney writes — it’s complacency. Here’s more from the Mets.

The Mets have decided not to promote top prospect Michael Conforto despite their need for offense, MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo writes. “At this point, he’s still in Binghamton and I would expect him to be over the near-term,” says GM Sandy Alderson. The Mets might be right not to see Conforto as a short-term fix for their sagging offense — he’s hitting .333/.414/.521 with Double-A Binghamton, but in only 133 plate appearances, and those represent his only experience in the high minors.

Injured star David Wright (spinal stenosis) is hopeful he’ll be able to return to action this season, Adam Rubin of ESPN New York writes. “We’re getting down to the second half of the season now, and I feel like I’ve got one shot to get this thing right,” Wright says. Standing upright no longer causes him discomfort, although he has not yet begun running, and he will probably need several weeks to get back into baseball activities before he can return.

Comments

I will never understand why people take the word of hack’s like Olney or Sherman as baseball gospel.. They are wrong 95% of the time and their believers always point to the other 5% as proof of their psychic abilities..

Olney is short sighted here. One of the best things that Alderson has done, that he often gets little credit for, is not overreacting. The franchise was on life support when he arrived. He surveyed the situation, figured out what needed to be done, but most importantly, he didn’t make any rash decisions. He didn’t freak out when he realized just how bad things were, and a LOT of people would have. He didn’t make a lot bad moves to try and fix things quickly, and a LOT of people would have. If you want to see what that looks like, go examine the Padres FO. They are doing it right now, and it’s blowing up in their faces, right now.

He knew this was going to take a long time to fix, and made the appropriate decisions to lead us in that direction. Well we can FINALLY see some daylight! We have a LOT of very nice pieces and the team has a LOT of very nice talent now. It has a lot of holes too, but it has a lot of talent as well. Why is that? Because he made rash decisions based on winning a couple extra games right now? Because he created a system to bring in players, via trade and the draft, and the system doesn’t rush those players. The players come up when they are ready, and usually, they get the proper development in the minors. The system IS working. We’ve seen it already.

It’s important to remember that patience is critical. You can’t rush player development. You can try, and the result is usually a mess, but if you want things done right, it takes time.

If you look at the teams over the past decade with the most success in the world series (Cardinals, Red Sox and Giants) there is a distinct pattern that all of those teams follow. Each of those teams have a solid farm system that they rely upon for a cheap influx of talent. If you want to win multiple rings these days, you have to have a solid farm system. There’s a nice little list of teams that can’t seem to learn this lesson, and they can’t seem to win many rings because of it either (Angels, Yankees, Dodgers, etc). There’s a second component involved in winning multiple rings though, and that’s $$$. It takes a competitive payroll to win multiple rings in this era. A team doesn’t necessarily have to be in the top 5 in spending, but they do have to be willing to spend when it’s necessary, or they won’t be able to field the necessary teams to win multiple rings. There’s a different list of teams that have proven this to be true (A’s, Rays, Royals, etc.)

The point is, if we want this organization to win a ring, and win multiple rings, THAT is the formula. Cross reference the top farm systems with the top spenders if you don’t believe me. THAT is the formula for winning multiple rings in this era.

So how is Sandy taking us THERE? He’s taken the farm system from practically nothing, to a highly productive system that is one of the best in baseball. The system IS where it needs to be now, and just needs time to keep producing. That is half of the problem right there!

The other half is complimenting our team with the right players, with money. That comes a little at a time. You don’t add a whole offense overnight, unless you are the Padres or the Dodgers, and both have proven that it doesn’t work. You add a piece here and there, as they become available, and as payroll permits.

The great thing is, Sandy hasn’t handicapped the team with any REALLY bad commitments. Nobody really wants to give him credit for that. While he’s had some players that haven’t lived up to their contracts, their haven’t been any of those really devastating, long term, dead weight deals. Most of his mistakes have been underperforming players on short term deals, which don’t keep the team from making another deal when the time is right.

When the year began, we all had high hopes for the season, and rightfully so. At least we can thank our lucky stars that Alderson is running the team, and not Olney, because as soon as DW and TDA went down, he’d have gutted the farm and sold the future, just to try and salvage the season.

Kazmir for Zambrano, again… Seriously Olney. smh. If your offense is putting up numbers to rival an all time low, it is NOT the time to make a playoff push. If you have multiple pitchers who are better hitters than many of your regular position players, it is NOT the time to make a playoff push. This is not rocket science.

I think that the Mets may have to wait until the offseason to make their big move for a position player. I don’t think many teams want to tear apart their roster these days, and you’ll probably get the best deal when teams can adjust for lost pieces via free agency.